The
city's most legendary
apartment building, the Dakota is a massive, fortress-like building
with a large center courtyard and very large apartments with very
high ceilings.

With
an impressive, arched
entrance on 72nd Street with sentry box flanked by large planters,
the buff-colored building is surrounded by a very attractive and
dramatic low cast-iron fence in front of a "dry moat."
The four corners of the courtyard, which has a fountain, lead
to separate lobbies and passenger elevators. (Service elevators
run up the middle of each side of the building.)

The
building exudes solidity
as well it should since its bottom walls are 28 inches thick,
but its profusion of architectural elements and pale yellow brickwork
that contrasts with dark brown masonry at the corners produce
a lively and graceful appearance of considerable visual interest
because of the mix of gables, arches, balconies, oriel windows,
dormers, finials and other ornamentation including a flagpole
at the top of its park facade.

View
from the northeast with the Majestic at the left

When
it was built in 1884,
it towered over the Upper West Side and was an immediate success
with all its apartments rented on opening day. Its developer,
Edward Severin Clark, an heir to a sewing machine fortune, died
two years before it opened. The building's name allegedly reflected
the fact that the building was so far removed from the city's
established luxury residential areas that it might as well be
in the Dakota territory. Its 72nd Street fašade, indeed,
has an image of a Native American carved on its fašade.

Designed
by Henry J. Hardenbergh,
who would later design the Plaza Hotel (see The
City Review article), the building had tennis courts and a
croquet field on the adjoining 175-foot-long lot on West 72nd
Street that was later developed after World War II as a separate
apartment building.

Many
of residents of its
cooperative apartments have been celebrities including John Lennon,
the Beatle who was slain in 1980, Leonard Bernstein, the composer
and conductor, Lauren Bacall, the actress, Judy Garland, the singer,
William Inge, the playwright, Jo Mielziner, the stage designer,
and Rex Reed, the columnist.

View
from the Top of the Rock

In
his superb book, "Upper
West Side Story, a History and Guide" (Abbeville Press, 1989),
Peter Salwen noted that "The early tenants included the piano
manufacturer Theodor Steinway and his friend the music publisher
Gustave Schirmer, who liked to fill his salon with such brilliant
guests as Mark Twain, William Dean Howells, Herman Melville and
Peter Ilyich Tchaikowsky, who came to town in 1891 to donduct
the opening night concert at Carnegie Hall, (A charming and extremely
unreliable anecdote has the bewildered Tchaikowsky mistaking the
Dakota for his host's private home - and Central Park for its
garden - and grumbling afterward, 'No wonder we composers are
so poor!'"

View
looking up with the Majestic at the left

"The
Dakota,"
Elizabeth Hawes wrote in her excellent book, "New York, New
York, How the Apartment House Transformed the Life of the City
(1869-1930)," (An Owl Book, Henry Holt and Company, 1993),
"was a daring building and a daring venture. Although its
situation seemed enviable - the peace and quiet, the unobstructed
light, the country air, the boundless vista - many New Yorkers
thought the view to a vast greensward was a lonely prospect. Others
condemned the intrusion of a bulky nine-story silhouette into
the precious arcadian landscape of the park. There was, in fact,
no other significant shape on the western horizon. The Upper West
Side was still a patchwork of small sleepy settlements and vacant
lots, interrupted here and there by a country house, an inn, an
asylum or a saloon. In 1880, the Sixth Avenue Elevated had been
extended up Ninth Avenue to 155th Street, which Clark hoped would
spur development in the area. That year, Riverside Drive had been
officially opened too.The most daring aspect of Clark's scheme
was the extravagance of his building. Behind a fašade described
as Brewery Brick Victorian neo-Gothic Eclectic, the building was
shaped like a huge hollow square, with a large open courtyard,
55 by 90 feet, planned as a carriage drive at center, and separate
entryways to its apartments at the corners. Inside, the building
was immense and contained 65 suites and 623 rooms in all.The largest
room was the public dining room on the ground floor, which was
fashioned after an example in an English manor house, with a baronial
fifteen-foot fireplace, an inlaid marble floor, and an elaborately
carved, quartered-oak ceiling. Adjacent was a smaller private
dining room, fitted with mahogany and large beveled-glass windows,
and a ladies' reception room, which featured a frieze of clematis
painted by the famous Greatorex sisters."

Entrance
on 72nd Street

Because
elevators were quite
new at the time and as was the concept of apartment living for
the well-to-do, the eighth and ninth floors of the building were
originally used for servants' quarters and laundry and storage
rooms, although they would eventually be converted to apartments,
and the tenth floor included a roof garden and a children's playroom.

Detail
of north gable on Central Park West

The
93-unit building's Victorian
and Gothic architectural details and ambiance were featured in
the popular spooky movie, "Rosemary's Baby," but it
is famed more now for its spectacular apartments and famous residents.
There is a subway stop at the corner.

Councilwoman Gail Brewer
has written lettersto
Mayor Bloomberg and Police Commissioner
Ray Kelly asking them to restrain tour buses from idling in residential
neighborhoods such as Central Park West and 72nd Street where some tour
buses
stop to let tourists "gawk at the Dakota and thespot where John Lennon was fatally shot by
Mark David Chapman in 1980," according to an May 24, 2010 article by
Avi at the
Westside Independent.

“As
we approach the summer season, my office is once again
hearing many reports about the noxious fumes and idling engine noise
from
double parked tour buses between the hours of 8:00 AM and 11:00 AM,
particularly on weekends,” Brewer wrote. “In addition, constituents
report that
poor coordination between the various tour companies results in large
numbers
of tourists blocking the streets and sidewalks as they get on and off
the
buses…residents cannot be expected to endure a significant loss in
their
quality of life in exchange for tourist dollars.”

“Both
I and my staff have visited the intersections on
weekend mornings and have learned that the majority of the tour buses
come from
out-of-state and Canada,"
the councilwoman's letter maintained.She said that she would like "a full-time officer placed
at the
intersection on weekend mornings," the article said, adding that “The
managers of large buildings in the area, The Dakota and The Majestic in
particular, are willing to meet with relevant city agencies if such a
discussion is needed in order to solve the problem.”

An
article by Peter Lattman and Christine Haughney in the February 2, 2011
edition of The New York Times reported on a racial discrimination and
defamation suit brought against the building by Alphonse Fletcher Jr.,
a former president of its board of directors.

Mr.
Fletcher, 45, a prominent Wall Street investor, according to the
article, has lived in the building since 1992 and filed the lawsuit
after the board denied his application to buy an adjacent unit to
accommodate his family.

The
lawsuit’s allegations include claims that board members made
ethnic slurs against prospective residents, including describing one
couple as part of the “Jewish mafia” and suggesting that a Hispanic
applicant was interested in a first-floor apartment so that he could
more easily buy drugs on the street. The applicant, who was rejected,
was married to a “prominent financially well-qualified white woman,”
according to the suit, and though neither is named, the timing and
circumstances suggest that it was Antonio Banderas.

"The suit
accuses the board of several other instances of treating minorities
unfairly," the article continued, "including repeatedly denying another black owner - the singer
Roberta Flack - permission to install a new bathtub and then joking
about it. Mr. Fletcher also accuses the board of self-dealing: shortly
after his request was denied last year, a member of the board who lives
on the same floor put her own apartment up for sale, offering it as a
package deal with the apartment Mr. Fletcher wanted to buy.

“Although such
conduct by a co-op board on the Upper West Side of Manhattan at the
beginning of the 21st century may seem surprising, this behavior was
consistent with the defendants’ extensive pattern of hostility toward
nonwhite residents of the building,” said the lawsuit, which was filed
on Tuesday in State Supreme Court in Manhattan.

"Regardless of
whether the accusations are proven in court," the article said "they are a potentially
embarrassing crack in the facade of one of the world’s most celebrated
buildings and fodder for those who feel they have been wronged by that
peculiar New York institution, the almighty co-op board. In a
statement, the Dakota’s board said that it had not yet reviewed the
lawsuit, but that “Mr. Fletcher’s application to purchase an additional
apartment in the Dakota was rejected based on financial materials he
provided.”

"Mr. Fletcher,
who is known as Buddy, declined to comment beyond the accusations in
his suit. He grew up in Waterford, Conn., and he and his two younger
brothers all earned their undergraduate degrees from Harvard. Geoffrey
Fletcher, the youngest, won an Academy Award last year for his
screenplay for the movie “Precious.” Todd Fletcher is an accomplished
composer. In 1991,
Alphonse Fletcher, then 25, sued Kidder, Peabody & Company, his
employer, accusing the Wall Street bank of paying him only half of the
$5 million in annual compensation that he said he was due. He claimed
the bank considered the amount 'simply too much money to pay a young
black man.' An arbitration panel eventually awarded Mr. Fletcher $1.3
million. Mr. Fletcher
founded Fletcher Asset Management in 1991 and set up an office
on the 48th floor of the General Motors Building with commanding views
of Central Park. As a privately held firm, it is not required to
disclose its assets, but according to an investor presentation, its
flagship arbitrage fund has claimed an average return of 8 percent a
year since 1997," the article said.

Mr. Fletcher
currently lives in an eight-room, 2,600-square-foot apartment with
three bedrooms, three and a half baths, two maids rooms and Central
Park views, according to an old sales listing kept by Michele Kleier of
the brokerage firm Gumley Haft Kleier.

"When Mr.
Fletcher tried to buy another apartment for his mother in 2002," the article continued, "the
building approved the deal on condition that no one else ever stay in
her apartment, even overnight, without board approval, a requirement
that the suit said had never been imposed on the unit before. Mr. Fletcher
decided to sue because he said he had been blocked from buying a
neighboring two-bedroom apartment he planned to use to accommodate his
growing family; he is married and has a 2-year-old daughter. He signed
a contract to buy the unit for $5.7 million, without a mortgage, from
the estate of its former owner, Ruth Proskauer Smith. Mr. Fletcher
said that the board began questioning his finances, and that it
unfairly concluded he was overleveraged with business loans even though
he provided documentation that his net worth was $80 million. It also
questioned whether he had made good on his philanthropic commitments
and, according to the lawsuit, began spreading rumors that his finances
were shaky. At the same time, the board approved two other buyers with
arguably less desirable financial credentials, the suit claims. In 2004, to
mark the 50th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education, the Supreme
Court ruling that declared segregation in schools unconstitutional, Mr.
Fletcher pledged $50 million to institutions and individuals working to
improve race relations. He has donated $4.5 million to Harvard to endow
the Alphonse Fletcher Sr. Professorship, a position held by Henry Louis
Gates Jr. Apart from a few hundred thousand dollars a year Mr. Fletcher
gives in charitable stipends, it is unknown how much more of the $50
million he has donated."

After Mr.
Fletcher’s contract was rejected by the Dakota, Pamela Lovinger, who
owns an apartment on the other side of Ms. Smith’s, stepped down from
the board. Ms. Lovinger then put her apartment up for sale, offering it
as a package deal with Ms. Smith’s former apartment for $19.5 million.
A message left at Ms. Lovinger’s home was not returned Tuesday evening.

The suit, which
is asking a judge to order the board to approve Mr. Fletcher’s purchase
and to provide more than $15 million in damages, offers other examples
of insensitive or discriminatory treatment, including the apparent
reference to Mr. Banderas, who was rejected in 2005, and the remark, in
2007, about prospective buyers, who were ultimately approved, being
part of the “Jewish mafia.” Public records show that the next apartment
to close in that building was a $20.5 million home bought by Philip and
Cheryl Milstein, of the Milstein real estate family.The suit also
said that the building’s only other black shareholder, “a prominent
individual in the arts” - Ms. Flack - “endured the humiliation of
applying multiple times for permission to fix or replace her bathtub,”
and that Mr. Fletcher overheard two board members snickering about it.
The lawsuit also said that while Ms. Flack, when taking her dog out,
was forced to obey the rule that dogs had to ride in the service
elevator, white residents were permitted to use the main elevator with
their dogs. “There are several of us up in arms about how Buddy is being
mistreated,” Ms. Flack said Tuesday. “I don’t know if there’s just
discrimination, but inadequacy, on the part of the people who make the
decisions.”

The Dakota apartment building yesterday filed a 237-page
response in New York State Supreme Court that denied charges of racial
discrimination by a former president of its co-op board and claimed that he
"simply lacked the wealth he claimed," according to an article in
the February 16, 2011 edition of The New York Times by Chrstine Haughney and Peter Lattman.

The former president, Alphonse Fletcher Jr., who still lives
at the Dakota, sued its board this month, claiming he had been denied
permission to buy an apartment next door because he was black and because
another board member wanted the apartment sold in a package deal with her own.

Mr. Fletcher also accused the board of discriminating
against other residents or applicants, the article continued, "including
the acting couple Melanie Griffith and Antonio Banderas, and the singer Roberta
Flack, who, Mr. Fletcher said, had been forced to use the service elevator when
walking her dogs while white residents were allowed to take their dogs into the
main elevator."

"The response was noteworthy," the article said,
"in that it is rare for any co-op board, let alone a famous one, to
disclose internal matters. Although Mr. Fletcher is a well-known investor, the
board, citing tax returns, bank records and other documents that he submitted
when applying to buy the $5.7 million apartment, called his statement of net
worth 'highly unrealistic.'”

The article also said that the building maintained that
"the money Mr. Fletcher claimed to manage was 'greatly inflated' because
his firm, Fletcher Asset Management, double-counted its assets, which Mr.
Fletcher said was $429 million, according to the court filing. And because the
firm reported a cumulative net loss from 2007 to 2009, the Dakota’s finance
committee called the value that Mr. Fletcher put on his business 'not credible.'”

"Mr. Fletcher’s annual mortgage payments - he also owns
two smaller units at the Dakota, at 1 West 72nd Street and bought his mother an
apartment there in 2001 - are about $1.5 million," the article said,
"yet his tax returns show his annual income is far less, the papers said.
In 2008, Mr. Fletcher reported an adjusted gross income of $674,000. The board
also was concerned that Mr. Fletcher supplied information through an accounting
firm that appeared to be independent but was actually run by one of his
employees. The response questioned whether Mr. Fletcher could afford another
apartment when his total annual maintenance cost would rise to $228,873 and
renovations would cost $1 million to $2 million."

Bruce Barnes, the current board president, said in court
papers that “there was absolutely no discussion of or concern about plaintiff’s
race; he is a longtime neighbor, was repeatedly approved for apartment
purchases in earlier years, has been elected to the board eight times, and has
twice been elected by the board as its president,” adding that approving the purchase would expose the Dakota
to 'unacceptable financial risk.'”

The article said that a spokeswoman for Mr. Fletcher said:
“The defendants’ latest filing predictably attempts to shift attention away
from the lengthy and detailed narrative in Mr. Fletcher’s complaint of unlawful
self-dealing, improper discrimination and inappropriate retaliation that lies
at the core of this case. There can be no legitimate question that Mr. Fletcher
was more than qualified to make the all-cash purchase of the apartment next to
his own at the Dakota.”